Campus News

Dr. Steven J. Jensen, a prolific writer, researcher and teacher, is Associate Professor of Philosophy in the Center for Thomistic Studies.

Could you please share with us the role ethics plays in your teaching and research?

When we have a great good, we want to share it with others. When I have discovered the truth, in the wonders of God’s creation, I wish others to see the truth as well. In both teaching and research I pass on the beauty of the truth to others. The greatest joy of the teacher is when his students comes to understand.

What classes do you teach that include ethics?

Phil 2314 Ethics

This course is a study of the components of moral decision and moral life: freedom, obligation, conscience, objective goods and values. Application of moral principles to particular circumstances. We will examine the ethical theory of St. Thomas Aquinas and of Aristotle, seeing how it applies to some contemporary ethical concerns.

Phil 3318 Bioethics

This course provides an overview of ethical issues arising in health care, such as confidentiality, informed consent, honesty, the just distribution of health care resources, questions of death and dying, assisted suicide, abortion, and cloning.

Phil 5338 Introduction to Thomistic Ethics

This course highlights the human person as agent, as moving toward ends or goods, and finally toward the ultimate end which Aquinas calls beatitudo: happiness.

Phil 5312 Natural Law

This course examines the natural law ethics of St. Thomas Aquinas, modern adaptations and applications, and some contemporary concerns.

The following is a compilation of books and articles written by Dr. Jensen.

Books

Knowing the Natural Law: Precepts, Inclinations, and Deriving Oughts, under review by The Catholic University of America Press

Living the Good Life: a Beginner’s Thomistic Ethics. Forthcoming in July, 2013, with The Catholic University of America press

The Ethics of Organ Transplantation (edited). Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2011.

Good and Evil Actions: A Journey through Saint Thomas Aquinas. Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2010.

Articles

“A Good Corpse: Why Dead Faith Is Not Evil,” under review by The Center for Thomistic Studies for publication in a book on Faith in Aquinas.

“Speciesism and the Basis for Equality under Justice,” under review by The Center for Thomistic Studies for publication in a book on justice in Aquinas.
“Do Circumstances Give Species,” in Spanish, forthcoming in a Spanish Festschrift in honor of Lawrence Dewan.

“Why the Senses Cannot Have Truth: the Need for Abstraction,” accepted for publication in a collection of the American Maritain Association.